Not by association

[caressa]

You don't get drunk watching another drink. You don't get serenity watching others do the steps.

- Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book

Like this thought, and it made me grateful. I brought the body and the mind finally caught up. I did managed to stay sober by just going to meetings, but I did have a willingness to not go back to where I came from. I didn't think I was an alcoholic but I knew that alcohol had been a big part of the mayham in my life whether it was me drinking it, my dad or ex-husband.

I can't find the serenity and peace by watching others work a program, I have to make that decision to do it for myself. Just occupying a chair doesn't work. Just saying the serenity prayer, along with everyone else, doesn't go very far if I don't mean the words and want to apply them to my life.

God grant me the Serenity (I didn't even know what it was), to accept the things I cannot change (well I quit drinking, nothing wrong with me now that i'm not drinking), the courage to change the things I can (who the heck wants to change any way, I'm having a good time) and the wisdom to know the difference (these people are dumb, if they don't know who am I to tell them.) Who says there is a God any way. He didn't do too good by me. Asked him lots of time to get me out of trouble, and He didn't do a thing.

What needs to be changed within me and my attitude! Hopefully you will do what I did, STAY! and Keep Coming Back!

[justjo]

Like the quote. I remember my sisters and I finding a case of 12 in the basement at the farm, at the top of the cement wall covered in dust. We didn't really know what it was. My sister said, "Here is Daddy's mom." I think I would be between 8 and 10 and the were 3 and 4 years younger than me. We never saw alcohol drank in our home. I don't know how my sister knew, but I had never seen it before and we didn't get a TV until I was 10. Ironically, I was the one who became the alcoholic. I left home at 17 and came home to take care of or dad when I was 26 and became his drinking buddy. He wasn't the one who got me drinking, my first husband who was raised to be a good little Christian boy did that, along with a few boyfriends after him. I remember drinking with my third boy friend after husband #1, drinking so much, wondering if I could drink fast enough to keep up with him. I made the choices to drink with them, I thought I was being cool. It later became, "God help your soul if you have one more drink than I do.

The drinking increases, the attitude changes, and then you decide to stop or keep on drinking. If you keep on drinking, you keep company with people who drink like you do. No one else wants to be around you and then comes the false pride that you are the best because you can drink them all under the table. Then you find that 'it' stops working for you and you need that something else. For me it started with relationships, pills, and food. I was looking for the affirmation and validation that I could no longer find within myself. A downward spiral, which some don't manage to pull out of. Thank God my jail time was going in to tell my story of recovery and being allowed to come back out, instead of having to stay enclosed behind those bars. The only difference I found between me and the girls incarcerated behind the bars was that they acted out their anger in I internalized mine.